


Wandering

by Say_it_aint_so



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Say_it_aint_so/pseuds/Say_it_aint_so
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being teleported to an unknown location, Ward and Simmons have to find their way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wandering

He didn’t know what he expected but this wasn’t it. 

To be fair, the day hadn’t gone as he’d expected at all. It started with a 0425 wakeup call about a report of a building in Christchurch, New Zealand disappearing. By 1345 local time, they’d found the culprit. A 7 year old girl missed the house she’d used to live in and teleported it to her new backyard in Auckland. At 1430, Ward, Coulson and Simmons knocked on the front door of the girl’s house. She opened the door and the next thing Ward knew he was on his back in the middle of a forest with Simmons next to him. 

“Are you okay?” The words left his mouth before he completes his own injury checklist. Ward was the field agent- Simmons was his responsibility. He had to protect her. 

Wide brown eyes stare back at him, unfocused. “I think so.” Simmons blinks. She looks around. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know. I really just hope that it isn’t Oz. Flying monkeys are not my forte.” Ward gets to his feet, holds out a hand and pulls Simmons up. 

“If we see on, we’d have to catch it or Fitz will have a fit.” She smiles at the joke before pulling her jacket tighter and shivering slightly. “But in all probability, Oz is fictional-“

“In all probability?” He raises an eyebrow, tone derisive.

“Gods are falling from the sky.” She waves a hand at the leafy canopy above their heads. “I think the lines between fiction and reality are a little blurred these days. But, I was going to say that we’ve probably just been spatially transported, not temporally or dimensionally.”

“Wait, temporally? As in time travel?”

“It would depend on what theory of teleportation is actually correct but essentially, yes, it’s a possibility.” She concludes with a firm nod as if she were presenting a lecture. 

Ward sighs and hangs his head, fingers interlocking behind his head. He drops his hands and looks to the sky. “This day just keeps getting better.”

“It’s very unlikely that we’ve been temporally transported. There wasn’t any prior evidence of temporal distortions in the area but –“

He cuts her off with the wave of a hand. “We’ll operate on the assumption that we didn’t time travel because I really don’t want to meet a T-rex for dinner.” He waits for her nod of agreement before pointing to his right. “That direction is east. We’ll head that way.” He starts walking.

Simmons hurries after him. “Any particular reason for east? I mean, is there some sort of super spy secret trick or something?”

“Yeah,” He looks over his shoulder at her. “The wicked witch lives in the west.” 

*/*/*

“When we get back, remind me to have a word to Fitz about improving the coms system.” They’d been walking for an hour in near silence and Ward found in unnerving. Talking meant that FitzSimmons were okay. Silence meant that trouble or imminent explosions. He’d learnt that by his third week on the Bus. 

“It’s not his fault. No one’s ever encountered teleportation before. We can’t extrapolate data from a non-existent sample.” Simmons voice is slightly breathless. “And for all we know we’re out of range.”

Ward stops so suddenly she nearly ran into his back. He turns to face her, looking down at her deer-in-the-headlights expression. “The entire planet and SHIELD satellite station are in range. Are you suggesting that we’re not on Earth anymore?” 

“It’s a possibility. A remote possibility given that the atmosphere is breathable and the fauna is somewhat familiar-“

“We’re on Earth.” Ward states as though sheer will could make it fact. He starts walking again. “When we were in Russia, Fitz was telling me something about the Faraday cup and you. Was it true?”  
Her snort and eye roll make him suppress a tight lipped grin. He’d sufficiently distracted her. Now she couldn’t focus on ruminating about the worst possible scenarios. “Is he still going on about that? It was his fault. He was the one who made me sick.”

“And you nearly blew up a SHIELD facility.”

“Nearly is a great exaggeration.”

“Don’t worry.” He offers her a reassuring smile with a twinkle in his eye. “You never get to Level 7 without almost blowing up something important.”

“Would it make more sense for the opposite to be true?”

“The greatest test of a person is how they react to their mistakes. And if the other way round, I would be on janitor duty for the rest of my life.”

Her eyes widen, sparkling with gleeful curiosity. “What did you do?”

He looks staunchly forward. “That’s classified.”

“You’re lying.” She frowns up at him, lips pursing as she searches his face for a tell.

“Are you sure about that? I have the best espionage skills since Romanov.”

“Callistemon citrinu.”

“Is that an insult in Latin?”

“No.” She tugs on his shirt sleeve and points to a small plant sparsely decorated with spindly red flowers. “It’s the name of the shrub. Commonly, it’s known as Bottle Brush. Indigenous populations used it to try and make honey. Fitz wanted to try it. He doesn’t like bees anymore and wants to put them out of business. It won’t work but he won’t listen to me after the bee incident.”

“Where is indigenous to?” He tries and fails to keep the impatience out of his voice. 

“Australia.”

“Can you be more specific?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t remember. Sorry.” She wrings her hands, ducking her head. 

He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. It was sensitive to the touch. A sure sign of sunburn. “Not your fault. Hey, Simmons, look at me.” She obeys. “We’re gonna find our way home, I promise.” She nods, not confidently but she’s no longer looking at the ground like she expects her grave to be in front of her. Making a decision, he exhales sharply and starts walking. “We’ll keep heading east. That’s where the population is concentrated. We’ll find someone. Or a water source.”

“Technically, the human body can go three days without water.”

“You don’t want to test that theory. Trust me.”

*/*/*

Four hours later, Jemma understands the descriptive phrase dying of thirst more than she’d ever wanted to. It was too hot to function. The sun was high overhead now and the cool air she’d felt when they first arrived was replaced by hot, humid air. She was from England. She breathed rain as easily as she did air. Her clothes stuck to her skin, glued by sweat. She’d shed her blazer, which was currently tied around Ward’s waist because he didn’t want to lose anything that they might be able to use later on, especially if it got cold at night. She’d rolled her eyes when he’d said that and called him MacGyver. He’d retorted that MacGyver rhymed with survivor for a reason.

Her breaths came in ragged gasps as they hiked up a hill. She’d called it a mountain but Ward disagreed. She’d argue with him but she didn’t have the breath to spare. 

He beat her to the top and waited for her at the hillcrest, leaning against a tree, sweat beading on his temples. “You okay?”

She nods, hands on her hips, leaning forward, straining to catch her breath. “I’m remembering why we failed out field tests.”

“You’re faster than Fitz.”

“Don’t tell him that. He’ll be heartbroken.”

Ward holds out his hand. “Come on, the terrain is rough and it’s pretty steep.”

She grabs his hand like it were a lifeline. They walk down the hill slowly, weaving between trees. Steps often turn to stumbles as the dirt and rocks between their feet give way.

“After this, you might want to consider joining me and Skye for training.” His voice was light and barely breathless. She hated him for it. 

“Or I might consider not getting out of bed for a month.”

Ward glances at her, a smirk on his lips. “And which of those will help you the next time you go hiking?”

Jemma pouted. “Fine. You’re right.”

“Three of my favourite words.” He was joking. Mostly. 

“Two. I used a contraction so two words, not – Oh thank heavens.” At the bottom of the hill was a stream of running water. It was just wide enough for Ward to kneel in it and be covered from knee to toe. It felt like bliss. 

Jemma collapses beside him, sitting cross legged and eagerly scooping up water with her hands, drinking greedily. 

Grant waits until she pauses for breath before speaking. “So now would be good time to tell you that you’ve literally climbed a mountain?”

She slapped the water, splashing his chuckling face. “You told me it was a hill!”

“I lied.”

*/*/*

 

They stumbled upon a hiking trail just as the sun starts to touch the horizon, casting long shadows everywhere. The trail leads uphill but Jemma doesn’t care. It’s the first sign of civilisation they’ve seen. The ache in her thighs is silenced by the thought of food. 

After agreeing to follow the trail, she and Ward don’t talk. It’s not an awkward silence. Each of them focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. Jemma begins counting the steps roughly carved into the mountainside. She gets up to 389 when they reach the top. There are no people. It’s an empty picnic area. Picnic tables cast long shadows, mixing with the tree’s shadows. She edges closer to Ward. Fitz has dragged her to too many horror films for her not be imagining the worst scenarios. 

“There’s a phone.” Ward points at a faded blue rectangular phone on a small metal post. She hasn’t seen technology so old since they were trying to recreate a failed 1980’s Hydra experiment. Ward sighs with audible relief when he hears the dial tone on the other side. He dials the SHIELD emergency number and authenticates his identity. 

Jemma sits on the picnic table closest to the phone and listens as he arranges a pick up for them. SHEILD is sending some local cops to pick them up and take them to the nearest airport where they’ll catch a SHEILD transport back to New Zealand to re-join the team. Ward hangs up and ambles over to her, holding out the blazer he’d tied around his waist to save it. “Our day of playing Robinson Crusoe is over?” She asks with a small smile, accepting the blazer. She puts it on. The air has a chill in it. 

“Thankfully.” He sits next to her. She can feel his body heat. “Locals will be here soon.”

“Hmm.” She closes her eyes, exhaustion setting in. Without the adrenaline rush of being utterly lost, all she feels is tired. Her head falls onto his shoulder. “You kept your promise, you know. Thank you.”

“Anytime.”


End file.
